Second Work Day - 5/26

"Do you believe in life after floods? I can feel something inside me say, I really think we can be strong enough. Do you believe in life after floods? I can feel a hammer inside my heart, together we'll build these walls back up."

           --our rendition of Cher's  "Believe" (credit to Andrea Watson and Katie Glockner)

Cheers from stormy New Orleans! Rising out of bed this morning was a bit difficult as we were all worn out from yesterday's work, but after a rousing breakfast of fruit, cereal, pop-tarts, muffins, and juice we packed ourselves up and headed off to the job site. Kevin, Basil, and Katie C spent the morning preparing a wooden frame for a cement patio at an almost completed red house towards the end of the row. Rachel and Alexa used some sledgehammers to bang out stakes from around the sidewalk and patios. Andrea and Colin worked on caulking together while Ms. Grossman, Jenna, and Stephanie struggled (and, boy, was it a struggle!!!!!) to nail in the much-dreaded f-channel (Mr. Bray didn't know what it was called since he managed to avoid putting it in!). Meanwhile, Katie G and Mr. Bray got straight back to work with the siding, and after about an hour's hard work we finished up the house! Once the boards were up, Andrea, Colin, Rachel, and Katie G grabbed some brushes and coated the newly-nailed siding (and their clothes) with a layer of teal paint.

 Katie was a beast today.  She carried 20 bags of concrete by herself (each one weighed 80 lbs!)  This is how she looked at the end of the day.

  Our lunch and break room.

 "Watch out, F-channel!"

 Andrea and Katie G. painting in the sky.  Katie & Mr. Bray finished siding that wall earlier in the day.

 More ladder work.

 Colin joins in the painting fun.  Mr. Bray made sure Andrea didn't paint above Colin...

 Rachel working on the side of the house.  The gents working in the background were a group of US Navy men there for the day.

 Katie G. and Colin tackle more F-channel while Jenna and Ms. G keep the ladders stable (we had some high winds today and the ladders occasionally felt a little "wobbly"- which only adds to the joy).  It was at this point that Mr. Bray told Katie G not to dance on the ladders.

As the day got hotter, we stopped for a lunch break around 11:30. We clambered aboard our van in search of a change of scenery, but our efforts to find a local park were unsuccessful. Determined to make the most of our off-site experience anyway, we decided to stop at a gas station to buy cold drinks, or in Colin's case Cajun fried chicken. While waiting for Mr. Bray to return to the van, we made a new friend. If you ask Andrea, she'd call him the wolf-seller (due to the wolf picture in his hand). Any of the rest of us might refer to him as the Spanish Jesus man: he greeted us with "Hola" and, after a round of high fives from only Katie G, Andrea, and Alexa, he politely informed us that "only tres girls are looking for Jesus." After our interesting encounter, we drove back to the site. We made sandwiches using the back of a van as a kitchen and hid in the shade using the space beneath the house as a dining room. 

Shade is a wonderful thing, no matter where you find it.

Stephanie mixes up some concrete for the stair landing.

Shoveling the concrete under the stairs.  The group mixed, shoveled, and carried over 4000 lbs of concrete today!

Basil showing his form on the hoe.

After lunch, Andrea, Alexa, and Rachel finished painting the long side of the teal house. Katie G, Jenna, Colin, and Ms. Grossman spent 2 hours hammering only 10 nails into the quickly-becoming-infamous f-channel (All the others have given up already...who will be next? dun dun dun. Read tomorrow for breaking news!). Kevin, Basil, Katie C, and Stephanie got to work on mixing cement, a challenging task when you fill the wheelbarrow with water BEFORE adding the cement dust! We had a brief burst of rain, but it subsided quickly (only to return later tonight). As the day came to a close, all of us joined together to finish mixing cement and to set it into the patio frame. We completed our task just as the clock hit 4 and the time to close the site had arrived.

The end of the work day, after finishing the concrete job.  Everyone did a tremendous amount of work today.

After going swimming and relaxing in our rooms, we took a trolley down to Bourbon Street. We ate dinner at a seafood restaurant (which also had non seafood options for our anti-pescatarians), enjoying everything from classic appetizers like hushpuppies, baked brie, and fondue to traditional entrees like Cajun king crab legs, seafood gumbo, and red beans with rice. Katie C enjoyed not only her delicious but furiously spicy crab, but also the remainders of everyone else's meals (sometimes willingly given, other times willfully taken). After our well-deserved meal, we walked around the street, window shopping, listening to the street jazz musicians, and drinking in all the sights, sounds and smells of New Orleans. A storm rolled in as we got ready to return to our inn, and we were treated first to rumbling thunder and flashes of lightning and then (fortunately not until AFTER we'd boarded the trolley) a downpour. What a day!

Posted by Katie Glockner (with help from Steph, Alexa, Andrea, and Rachel)

QUOTABLE MOMENTS:

Mr. Bray: "Katie [Glockner], no dancing on the ladders!"

Andrea (to a man we'd just met): "Wait, is that a wolf?? Are you selling it?"

Ms. Grossman: "So, what did you think of Hemingway?"

Stephanie: "It's too flat. It's like reading a pancake."